"Horse!" finished Cora. "I saw a head just then."

"Oh, it's a whale!" cried Bess, actually dropping into the bottom of the boat as if to hide from the monster.

"And he may have eaten Walter!" wailed Belle.

"Girls!" commanded Cora. "Do try not to be so foolish. There are no whales in this bay." But all the same her voice was unsteady, and she would have given worlds for a rea.s.suring shout from Walter.

Another splash!

"There he goes! It's a porpoise!" cried Jack. "No danger of one of those hog-fish going near a man. They're as timid as mice. Just see him go! There ought to be a lot of others, for they generally go in schools. Maybe this one was kept in because he couldn't spell 'book,'

and is just getting home."

Cora breathed a sigh of relief at Jack's joking tone. She didn't care to see the big fish swim--she was only too glad that he was going, and that he was of the harmless species described by Jack. The others watched the porpoise as he made his way out to the open sea.

"My, I'll bet Walter was frightened if he met that fellow," said Ed.

"I wish he hadn't gone," he whispered to Jack a moment later.

"He said he would fire a pistol when he got to sh.o.r.e. He took a little one with him, and it's waterproof. Let's listen."

As if the magical words had gone by wireless, at that very moment a shot was heard!

"There! He's safe! That was his signal!" cried Jack, and Cora said afterwards that he hugged Belle, although the youth declared it was his own sister whom he had embraced.

"Now, we will only have to wait and not worry," Ed remarked. "Over at that light there must be human beings, and they must have boats. Boats plus humans equal rescue."

The relief from anxiety put the girls in better spirits. Bess and Belle wondered if Nettie had returned, and speculated whether, on finding them gone, she might have notified the police. Cora was thinking about what sort of lifeboat Walter would return with, while Ed and Jack were content to look and listen.

A good hour pa.s.sed, when a light could be seen moving about the beach.

"They're coming, all right," declared Ed. "Watch that glimmer."

The light moved first to the north, then in the other direction, until finally it became steady and was heading straight for the party in distress.

"Wave your lantern," suggested Cora. "They may not be able to see it as it stands."

Ed stood on the seat and circled the light about his head.

Breathlessly they stood there--waiting, wondering and watching.

"I'm going to call," said Bess, at the same moment shouting, "Walter!"

at the top of her voice.

"C-o-m-ing!" came the reply, and this time it was an open question whether Bess hugged Ed or Jack.

"Now we will be all right," breathed Belle. "Oh, I shall never want to see a motor boat again! The _Flyaway_ is good enough for me."

"Yes, I fancy a motor on the earth myself," Cora agreed, "but, of course, a little experience like this adds to our general knowledge. I hope Walter is all right."

"Just hear him laugh," said Jack, as a chuckle came over the water.

"Likely he has struck up with some mermaid. It would be just Wallie's luck."

The merry voices that could now be heard were rea.s.suring indeed.

Nearer and nearer they came, until the girls actually became interested to the extent of arranging side combs and otherwise attending to little niceties, dear to the heart of all girls.

"It's a mermaid, sure," declared Jack. "I heard her giggle!" and he grabbed out Cora's side comb to arrange his own hair.

"Oh, it is--a girl," whispered Bess to Cora. "I heard her voice."

"I hope she's nice," answered Cora, "but as long as we get some one to pull us off we have no occasion to be particular."

By this time the rowboat was almost alongside.

"Hurrah!" shouted Jack.

"Also hurray!" added Ed.

"Walter, you're a brick!" exclaimed Cora fervently.

The light of the lantern now fell upon the face of the stranger.

The stranded ones looked upon the countenance of a girl, not perhaps a very young girl, nor a very pretty girl, but her face was pleasant, and she pulled a stroke as steady as did Walter.

Walter stood up. He was enveloped in a bath robe!

CHAPTER V

FRIEND OR FOE?

When their launch pulled up to the dock that night, an anxious party greeted them. Nettie had returned from the city, and upon finding the cottage deserted had waited a reasonable length of time before consulting the neighbors. Then she found that the young folks had gone sailing.

That settled it, for the waters of the bay are never considered too reliable, and when the girls did not return by ten o'clock Nettie locked up the cottage and set off for the beach.

Of course, she learned that such a party had gone out, but in what direction no one along the beach front seemed to know. The upper bay course was the last thing thought of, and, when Nettie did succeed in hiring a fisherman to set out and search, he went down the cove opposite to the course taken by Ed in his motor boat.

In half an hour the fisherman returned, and, as luck would have it, he brought with him Walter's cap, which had fallen overboard as the youth started out from the stalled motor boat, and so drifted in the other direction.

In the rapid time that bad news always flies, the report became circulated that a sailing party was lost. Hazel and Paul Hastings, two friends of the motor girls, heard the report at their cottage, and hurried down to the little wharf, where they found Nettie in the deepest distress.

Just as Paul was about to set out himself, the launch chugged in, with the party laughing and singing, Cora playing that same tune, and with our friends was the little lady from the bungalow, she who had rescued Walter, and who went with him to the succor of the stranded ones on the sand bar.

It was a wonderful evening, and when Cora, with Bess, Belle and Miss Robbins, the new girl, stepped ash.o.r.e, they evidently did not regret the length of time spent upon the water.

Miss Robbins, it developed, was a young doctor, stopping up the river in a bungalow with her mother. Her boat was towed by the launch when they came in, and, although she wanted to row back, the others would not listen to such a proposition.

"It won't take half an hour to get to the garage and bring my car right down here," insisted Walter, "unless you prefer walking up to the cottage with the young ladies, and I can run over there for you. I will have you back in your bungalow in ten minutes more."